Sound Discussion - Miss Miller

Sound is important within a thriller because it suggests a feeling of a character or leads the audience into feeling a certain emotion. Often within thrillers, sound is used in order to add to the shock factor for the three S', these are Shock, Suspense and Surprise. By allowing this it makes the thriller affect the audience more and leave an impact. Sound gives a lot away about genre, for example eerie music will be used in a horror/thriller, cheerful music in an adventure film etc. My group and I have lots of ideas on what sound techniques to use in order to achieve a powerful reaction from the audience and these include:

• Non Diagetic
• Parallel Sounds
• Diagetic
• Off Screen
• On Screen
• Controversial Sound

We believe that using diagetic sounds during our opening sequence will emphasise how our character is feeling. For example, when our second victim, 'Dave' arrives home and is about to come face-to-face with his killer, the loud beat of his heart will be beating which will convey the idea to the audience that there is a strong sense of fear within the scene. Having a loud heart beat over the scene show's that the character is nervous which will gain the audience's sympathy at this point because it's showing a character in a vulnerable position. My group and I have decided to place this diagetic sound at this point within the scene because we felt that by this time, there is a stronge sense of enigma which indicates that this is conventional to a thriller film because thrillers like to give off the theme of fear and create a tense atmopshere aswell enigma in order to trap the audience into feeling how the character may be feeling.

Another sound technique we are using is controversial. We felt strongly about including this into a thriller because when we include this in our opening sequence when Dave returns home to see an empty downstairs, with the audience unknowing that something bad has happened, the audio of a radio playing an up beat song such as 'Mrs Robinson' creates the sense that everything is bad. My group and I believe that by including this within our own opening sequence it misleads the audience and confuses them because the scenes of which are happening are disturbing yet the upbeat music makes everything appear good and positive, therefore confusing the audience makes them unsure on how they should feel about a certain character. Also, despite what the effect this may have on the audience with relation to how the character is feeling, this sound technique can also represent the personality of our victim. The upbeat music portrays a happy and jolly side, which we felt would be a strong piece of music to use as it could allow the audience to infer from this that the character of 'Dave' is a jolly person. This is conventional to a thriller film because it's allowing the audience to subconsciously build a relationship with the characters and get to know what kind of personality they have. Further more my group and I felt this would be a good use of controversial music and feel that by using this, it will set the audience up for shock when something bad happens during the misleading music.

Off screen sound is another sound technique of which my group and I believed to be strong within our opening sequence. We will use this particular sound effect when Dave is on the phone to Stacey, and we are unable to see Stacey. This indicates to the audience who the character is speaking to, and allowing the audience to hear who's on the other end and what the conversation is about means that we are able to gain focus from the audience on the character on the other end of the line to show the significance of the other character. By allowing the audience to divert their attention to a different character, it is allowing them to pre-meet them the character and get an idea for their personality. Though this sound effect doesn't convey any emotion of the characters, it does allow a sense of knowing because it is involving the audience into knowing what the conversation is about showing a sense of trust and allowing the audience to build a relationship with the characters. This is conventional to a thriller film because it is allowing the audience to become attached to each character therefore meaning that if anything happens to them, the audience will be sympathetic towards the characters.

My group and I feel that by including Silence in our opening sequence will help produce a tense atmosphere amongst not only the scene but also amongst the audience. We will use silence when Dave is searching for his dead wife, Stacey, and before coming face to face with her, there will be a long pause of silence. The reason for this is because often where the is silence, the audience will be waiting in anticipation to see what has happened. This is conventional to a thriller because the audience will be in pure suspense, it also makes a sense of unknowing and therefore my group and I thought this would be useful to use in our own opening sequence.

Planning Cinematography - Miss Miller

Cinematography is very important in thriller films because it conveys different emotions and allows a tense atmosphere. Different camera angles are used to help portray certain emotions a particular character is feeling in a scene or to emphasise something specific that the audience may be required to pay more attention to. After studying the different camera angles in depth, my group and I decided upon using five that we felt were particularly strong to use within a thriller. These camera angles include:

• Close up
• Long shot
• High Angle
• Low Angle
• Point Of View

My group and I felt that by using these camera angles we would hold the audiences attention and engage them. The camera angles we will use are very powerful and do represent a lot of conventions in a thriller so would be very useful to use in our opening sequence because it would not only make the genre of our opening sequence clear, but also get the best reaction from our targeted audience.

We will be using P.O.V for the killer through out the whole opening sequence. P.O.V will  first be shown when entering the house after the wife has got off the phone from her husband. This means that when the killer enters the house, the audience is unaware as to who's entering the house, therefore creating a sense of enigma. Having enigma within a thriller is extremely important in a thriller because it allows room for more tension and ability to include shock, suspense and surprise. When the killer picks up a knife, it's allowing the audience to relate because it's showing what the killer's thought process is. P.O.V is conventional to a thriller film because of the enigma it creates, this means that there is a clear theme of mystery running through out and therefore my group and I want to include this within our thriller opening sequence.

Another camera angle that we will use is high angle. High angle's can establish the vulnerability of a character and make them seem weak or pre-warn the audience that something bad is going to happen. My group and I are going to use high angles when showing a vulnerable character alone and allowing them to come across as weak to the audience. The first time high angle will be seen to be used is when Stacey is in the bathroom right before her murder. This is to emphasise just how vulnerable the character is and to show how small she is compared the large, spacious room. This represents her insignificance and that she is trapped within her own comfort without knowing. Another time that high angle is going to be used is when Dave has come home from work and is travelling up the staircase about to walk past the bathroom. This shows the same weakness as what would have just been previously seen with Stacey. High angles are typical conventions of a thriller and my group and I felt that by using this technique it helps engage the audience and allows them to build a relationship with the actors. This shot is particularly conventional to a thriller film because the effects of it are to show a sense of helplessness to a character and conveys a fearful atmosphere.

My group and I particularly felt that a close up being used would be a good convention of a thriller film to include in our own opening sequence for our own thriller. A close up demonstrates a characters specific emotion and captures a clear facial expression in order to get a reaction from the audience, allowing the audience to build a relationship with the character, therefore making the audience protective if anything happens to the character. We are going to use a close up when Dave enters the house and comes face to face with his dead wife. The reason we are doing this is to capture the character's fear and convey the idea that his character is feeling nervous and fearful. It allows the audience to respond in the same and show a parallel feeling between the audience and the character. This is conventional to a thriller film because it shows emphasis on a particular feeling or emotion to the audience and helps build a relationship between the two in order for the audience to feel sympathetic towards a character.

Low angles will also be used in our opening sequence. The use of a low angle allows a character to appear as strong or significant to the audience because the character seems to be powerful or taller than what they are. My group and I are using this angle when our character 'Dave' is coming up the stairs. By using this camera angle is is showing that despite the eerie silence and background, it shows his bravery as he steadily makes his way upstairs. This is misleading to the audience because it comes across as his character is brave and not fearful, yet feels nothing like it which is conventional to a thriller film because it creates the idea of a character that should be strong, yet when something happens, feels the completely opposite therefore leading the audience into a false sense of security before something bad is going to happen.

We also decided upon wanting to use a long shot in our opening sequence. We are going to use a long shot when our character 'Stacey' is in the kitchen chopping vegetables. The reason for us using a long shot is to show the audience all the potential weapons with the different iconography in the scene. This will allow the audience to focus on specific objects within the background allowing a vulnerable atmosphere to be either exaggerated or to feel like a sense of security because it is within a film. Long shot's are conventional to a thriller because it helps establish all of the surroundings of a scene, and the background so the audience are able to see and get a feel for the scenery and layout of a place before something happens and can be used as an advantage to help create a sense of enigma, fear and tension when something bad happens.

Planning character representation - Miss Georgiou

 

In this post I will be discussing what my group and I are going to be using within our own thriller clip with the characters of which we will be using and why we are using them.

My group and I decided amongst ourselves that using three characters for our thriller film would be best suited because it would allow us to display a variety of things within our thriller, setting the mood and allowing the audience to concentrate on them one at a time.

Victim One
    Name: Stacey
    Gender: Female
    Age: 35
    Race: Eastern European
    Background: Stacey is an everyday home maker. She spends everyday looking after all responsibilities within the home. Tasks involving cleaning the house, doing the washing, cooking nice home made meals -which we discover in the opening scene to allow the audience to relate to the character and develop some sort of relationship with the character. Stacey doesn't have any friends and her family consists of just her, Dave and their two sons. The reason for this is because both her parents were murdered when she had just married Dave. Stacey was a hard working young lady as a school girl, but bad influences made her drop out of school and ever since, she had always kept to cleaning houses as she had no other qualifications.

How character relates:
Stacey's character appeals to the target audience. The reason for this is because at 15-18yrs old (stereotypically) girls are conscience of their appearance, and so to include a female character with very basic make up and her hair tied up shows a sense of vulnerability yet confident, giving a slight moral to the teenage girls that it's okay to look how you do. This makes Stacey approachable to the audience. Also, by her wearing an apron and having no make up on, her hair tied up.. it will make her look weak. By showing this to the audience, it's allowing them to have a prewarning of what could happen and that she is a weak character, and the scene's of which she is in will emphasise how helpless and weak she is. This makes the audience want to reach out and help, therefore allowing her character to appeal to the target audience.



Victim Two
    Name: Dave
    Gender: Male
    Age: 40
    Race: Eastern European
    Background: Dave is a solicitor. He is currently on a case working as a defendant for a victim against a well known criminal who is full of anger and revenge for anyone. Dave is happily married with his wife; Stacey. They have two sons, a nice house. The family are strict Christians and are strong believers in karma, this belief is why Dave has become a solicitor. Dave has grown up with both parents who are still with him to this very day, he has two older brothers who are twins, and one younger sister. Dave is a very family orientated person, and he guards his family with his life. He's had an easy time growing up, and he comes from a wealthy background.

How character relates:
The character of Dave appeals to the audience. This is because he comes across as a good soul who is willing to help. The fact that he is a solicitor and to do with the law, allows the audience to trust him because of his authority and would therefore hold him in high regard. His character also allows the male audience to look up to him as an inspiring figure and influencing a positive look on reality. The use of his outfit where he will be wearing a smart suit, along with a brief case show's that he is a sophisticated, strong character. It is important to convey the idea that this character is strong because it is a sense of security for the audience, therefore allowing him to appeal to the audience. The differene in clothing between him and Stacey shows the comparisons of a strong character and a weak character.


Killer
    Name:
    Gender: Male
    Age:
    Race: British
    Background: This killer is currently facing trial in court for attempt of man slaughter, he has no friends nor family. As a young boy growing up, he was around a lot of nasty areas where he saw crime take place right in front of him - the main crime he saw was knife crime -  and he witnessed his mother getting aggressively stabbed when he was 11. Since then he hadn't been the same, he had studied hard at school until he was 16 and then left to go and get a job. At this job, he was treated with no respect and was bullied by his colleagues both physically and mentally. Seeing his mother getting murdered and witnessing violence through out his life, as well as being bullied, violence has been a big influence in his life and his actions. He has killed 5 civilians so far, but yet is still blood thirsty.

How character relates:
The killer may not appeal to the majority of the audience. This is because this character is seen as violent and morally wrong in his belief. However, taking this attitude on the character works because in order for a successful thriller, we need the enemy to be feared for the audience to not want to relate to the killer. Yet, despite the audience not relating to this character, they still do. By this, I mean that the fact that this character is despised, it makes the audience want to know more and engages their audience with a film so still relates to the audience and appeals to them because it achieves an effective reaction.

Inspirations - Miss Miller

When creating your own opening scene to a thriller it is important to gather some inspirations to include in order for it to be successful. My group and I have got inspirations from different films that we felt were strong and contained successful conventions that if we incorporated in our own opening sequels, would create atmospheres of our choice in order to create shock, surprise and suspense.

The films that my group and I have chosen inspirations from are: Halloween town (1974) where the point of view of the killer when passing through the house cleverly is blacked out apart from two eye slits allowing the audience to only see what the killer see's. My group and I believed this to be a strong idea because it helps create a sense of enigma and allows the audience to feel vulnerable.

*insert picture of Halloween town (1974)*

Another film that we got our inspirations from are sixth sense. This will be evident when victim 2 (the husband) is about to get killed, and as he comes face to face with the killer, his breathe turns hot against the cold air. We thought this would be a good idea as it emphasises how scared the character is feeling which is clear to the audience.

*insert picture of sixth sense*

Scream 2 is another big inspiration to our opening sequence because it's what our thriller is based upon, with the theory of a phone call and the great use of a knife as part of the iconography. We felt this would be a perfect inspiration to make our audience jump and feel tense because by creating a tense atmosphere it would engage the audience more.

*insert picture of scream two*

Lastly, we have used inspirations from shutter island when looking at the music. This is because we felt that in shutter island when a character is scared, there is a non diagetic sound of the characters heart beating fast, we felt that including this in our own opening sequence it would allow us to emphasise on the theme of fear and really convey this idea to the audience that it's something that could happen to any of the audience.

*insert picture of shutter island*

As listed above, we have chosen various inspirations to include in our thriller, we chose these inspirations because we felt that they would work well with our idea in order to achieve the best reaction from the audience in order to make our opening sequence memorable. Though these inspirations are featured in our opening sequence, and may come across as something that is not our idea, we have made sure to make these features our own. We done this by mixing all of these inspirations together to create a new idea to base our opening sequence on. We felt by using these inspirations in different scenes it would show our understanding of how to create a specific atmosphere and our ability to turn these inspirations in to our own ideas, therefore showing how we were able to make these inspirations our own.

We felt that these inspirations were important because they all belong to well known thrillers. This means that these techniques used were successful, and therefore that means if we include them in our opening sequence, it would allow it to be a successful opening sequence also. By making them all our own it makes the effect of the inspirations even greater and more effective.

Our research was useful in the terms of getting ideas for our narratives because we was able to gain knowledge on how to incorporate affective techniques within our own openings sequence. We will take these ideas and develop them within our own opening sequence thrillers by adding a unique twist to them in order to sustain more concentration and feelings with the audience to the characters in the film.

Planning mise-en-scene Miss Georgiou

Mise-en-scene is extremely important within my thriller film because it includes all the features that are required to a film. Mise-en-scene contains Setting and Iconography, Costume, hair & Make up, Facial Expressions/Body Language, Lighting and colour, Positioning of characters and/or objects so therefore I will be discussing these and how my mise-en-scene is conventional to a thriller film and also how the audience will build a relationship with my thriller.

 

Looking at the settings and iconography within my thriller, it includes a house as the setting. The reason for using this setting is because it creates a sense of reality and therefore makes it more believable so it appeals more to the audience because people do see their house's as a place of safety so by showing the status of safety is incorrect because of what is going to happen within the thriller it makes the audience more weary and far more interested as they are aware that it could concern them, not that it would, but it gives the initial idea to the person therefore creating a tense atmosphere amongst the audience. The iconography of my thriller will contain the everyday kitchen use, for example a knife, a timer, an oven, kettle etc.. all of the regularly seen objects within a household which therefore creates a sense of safety but when this is jeopardised it creates a sense of fear. The use of iconography such as a knife shows typical conventions to a thriller film and is prewarning the audience of sharp objects, or objects that are able to harm and subconsciously tells them that something is going to happen in that specific location or scene.

 

Moving onto costume, hair and make-up it resembles a great contribution to mise-en-scene within my thriller. The variety of costume is going to be an everyday, casual wear. This is to show that the victims in this case are equal to the audience. By having the victims wearing casual clothes and allowing them to be equal to the audience it creates a sense of reality and shows that the events could happen to anyone in the following audience. Looking at hair and make up within my thriller, I feel it shows the characteristics of the characters and demonstrates the personality of a character too. By using make up of a natural like way, or no make up it can represent that there is a neutral person who can be calm and relaxing, and there would be maybe wavy hair to support this connotation, therefore I feel by using the victims in the household to have naturally done hair it could make the audience feel the victims are approachable and allow a relationship between the chracters and the audience so that when something bad happens to the victim they develope more emotion towards the film and so by using these features it cleverly gets the audience alongside the film and involved them more.

 

 

Facial expressions and body language is largely important within my thriller film. This is because it gives the audience an insight as to how each character is feeling and the attitude they take on things. It presents a personal view from the character, allowing the audience to understand them. For example, a close up on a characters face shows the particular expression of emotion that the character is feeling which in the case of a thriller and when used in my thriller, conveys the theme of fear and enigma because you won't see what the character is necessarily scared of. In something like a midshot where body language is frequently shown, even if it doesn't show a facial expression within the shot to help give the audience an insight as to what they are feeling, judging body language allows the audience to see if the person is comfortable with the situation, if they're happy or if perhaps they are infact fearful of a situation within a scene.

 

Looking at lighting and colour within my thriller that my group and I are going to create. Low key lighting will be used because through research I discovered that low key lighting is conventional to a thriller film and so my group and I thought it would be wise to use this. Low key lighting allows a dim focus and allows things within a scene to easily be forgotten and hidden, emphasising the sense of enigma and allowing tension to enter the scene. The colours that I would like myself and the other members of my group to use are mostly neutral colours with the acception of a few bright which we hope to use in order to draw the audiences attention too, for example the wife should be wearing a white apron to show innocent and purity, whilst the weapon that she is using in a regular situation that soon seems to be the weapon the kills her, will be on a red chopping board with the knife resting on top of it in order to gain the audiences attention and subconsciencely lay out the crime scene, but yet when the killing happens, it still shocks the audience.

The positioning of the characters and object will be carefully planned out. It is my intention to make the setting of the thriller come across as quiet small and vunerable so by using, as discussed in the earlier part of this post, specific editing and camera angle techniques it will create the scene to join together and make them feel like how perhaps the character may feel. By having the female victim positioned in the kitchen cooking dinner, in a small and insignificant room it can represent how the female is soon going to be feeling. Therefore because of this I felt that it would be wise if this would be included because it prewarns the audience about a specific character and allows the audience to become familiar with the setting of the scene.

My mise-en-scene is going to be conventional to a thriller film because I have spoken to my group and we have discussed eachothers points and discovered it would be wise to use eachothers idea in order to create a strong piece of work, for example, including a female victim in the opening scene and showing vulnerability, it links to relations with a thriller because it is conventional to find a vulnerable female victim on many cases.

My group and I felt that it would be wise to allow a connection between the audience and the characers within the film for example we felt that to show that the wife does have a family, it opens the door to those who have family and therefore makes the audience feel some sort of sympathy if something was to happen because reality appears in the scene. We felt that the audience could build a connection with the characters by using every day characters with normal homes and normal lives so it relates to the audience and gives them some sort of common ground.